New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg has declared the left ‘stagnant,’ but what she really means is that it’s miserable.
By • The Federalist
Dear Abby: I’m a liberal Democrat and my entire political party is full of insufferable nags. What do I do?!
That was the entire point of New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg’s article this week wherein she fretted that normal Americans are perhaps drifting to the political right because the left has become so indefensibly annoying.
“For those who get most of their politics online, this can be what the left looks like — a humorless person shaking her head at others’ insensitivity,” she wrote. “As a result, an alliance with the country’s most repressive forces can appear, to some, as liberating.”
Without saying it outright, Goldberg was getting at the left’s defining qualities today. Its allies have become so miserable, so toxic, so angry and weird that it’s repulsing voters. They call people “racist” for any reason at all. They push for the sexualization of children in public schools. And they shut down all discourse that threatens their delicate ideology.
Look what’s happening with the Elon Musk-Twitter drama. A billionaire wanted to buy a publishing company — not something unheard of — and it was an unnecessarily drawn out, messy fight for him to do it because the left wing and Democrats believe they alone dictate what counts as fair discourse.
Goldberg declared the left “stagnant,” but what she really means is that it’s miserable. It’s stuck in a rut because its activists are singularly motivated by negative emotions now. What do they talk about these days? Persecuting Trump supporters who were in Washington on Jan. 6, Covid as a means of controlling the populace, and “equity” for anyone who claims to be oppressed (i.e. the Democrat voter base).
“When the left becomes grimly censorious, it incubates its own opposition,” wrote Goldberg. “The internet makes things worse, giving the whole world a taste of the type of irritating progressive sanctimony…”
She says this like it’s a problem created by the right, or even unassuming independents who must not be able to distinguish between the “online” left from the real left. It’s not. It’s people like Goldberg who wanted to teach children about transgenderism and how it sucks to be white. That people were repulsed by their weird fixations isn’t their own fault. It’s the fault of the left for being so creepy, unhappy, and maladjusted.
Look at Florida. The hottest controversy there now is whether kindergarten teachers should be able to explain to students what it means to be “gender queer.” Leftists are adamant that they get to talk about sexual identity with kids. It’s dumb. Even a majority of Democrats in that state know it’s dumb.
Look at the reaction to the district judge in Florida who struck down the airline mask mandate. Leftists are furious that they can’t tell people to cover up their noses and mouths anymore (at least for now).
Look at the election of GOP Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. His central campaign theme was that public school kids shouldn’t be instilled with the idea that being white is an irredeemable sin. The left nearly needed an exorcism.
Look at your own encounters with these people. The funny thing about left-wingers is that they feel absolutely no reservation about showing up to a social function and popping off with their political opinions on race, sex, and equity.
Any normal person thinks to himself, “I’d rather not.” Leftists don’t. They see it as their duty to ensure that everyone knows how they feel (miserable).
You don’t like it? Tough.
Goldberg knows her movement is an emotional and mental mess. She just can’t bear to break the news.
They’re always angry. They’re always upset. They’ve lost their grip. Goldberg could have just said that, but instead, she whined about conservatives and independent Americans who aren’t into the gross and distasteful things that the movement she belongs to has produced.
“In the short term, however, it’s frightening to think that backlash politics could become somehow fashionable, especially given how stagnant the left appears,” she continued.
The left doesn’t “appear” anything. It’s undeniably vulgar, and fewer people want to be part of it. Maybe Goldberg should just admit it and stop making excuses for how awful the left-wing Democrat movement is.
By • American Action News
In anticipation of President Joe Biden’s first-ever speech to Joint Session of Congress, the Republican National Committee released a list of what it referred to as “failure after failure” to mark his first 100 days in office.
“Here is just a shortlist,” the RNC said, of what it had identified as Biden’s “many broken promises, disastrous policies, and dangerous proposals: on a variety of issues including:
Joe Biden’s first 100 days have been marked by failure after failure.
Here is just a SHORT list of his many broken promises, disastrous policies, and dangerous proposals:
Biden’s Open Borders Agenda Created A Border Crisis
1. Biden’s open borders agenda has created a border crisis.
2. Biden tried to suspend deportations, weakening immigration enforcement.
3. He has obstructed border wall construction, including through his budget request, which would eliminate all funding for the border wall. Experts say border walls work, and Biden’s construction obstruction is literally throwing the border wide open.
4. Border state Democrats warned Biden’s White House about a border crisis fueled by his polices but the administration ignored their warnings.
Biden’s Border Crisis Boomed
5. Now, experts estimate 1,000 illegal immigrants are escaping into the U.S. each day during Biden’s border crisis.
6. There were 172,331 border apprehensions in March, 5 times the number in March last year.
7. Nearly 19,000 unaccompanied children were taken into custody in March, the highest monthly total ever recorded.
8. Customs and Border Protection forecasts 184,000 migrant children will cross the border by the end of FY 2021, which would be the highest number ever.
9. There has been a 233% increase in fentanyl seizures at the southern border from this time last year.
10. Thanks to Biden’s border wall obstruction, smugglers are exploiting gaps in the wall that were previously set to be built.
11. Officials warn of a “boom time for gangs,” traffickers, and smugglers as they take advantage of Biden’s border crisis.
Biden’s Crisis Of Leadership On The Border
12. In response, Biden has repeatedly tried to gaslight the American people about the seriousness of the crisis.
13. When Biden finally admitted there is a “crisis that ended up on the border,” the White House then insisted that is not their official position in a completely insane walk-back, and that “children coming to our border… is not a crisis.”
14. Biden still does not have any plans to visit the border.
15. Kamala Harris laughed when she was asked if she would visit the border, and still has not visited the border even after being named Biden’s crisis manager.
Border Officials Struggle To Cope With Biden’s Disastrous Agenda
16. The Biden administration is releasing some illegal immigrants caught crossing the border without a court notice, and sometimes without any paperwork at all.
17. Border facilities are “stretched beyond thin” because of the crisis.
18. The Donna, Texas facility, one of the few facilities exempted from Biden’s media blackout, is at more than 16 times its capacity. Even Dr. Fauci admitted that packed crowds of migrant children is a “major concern.”
19. To deal with the surge, the Pentagon was forced to approve multiple military bases to house unaccompanied migrant children.
Biden Is Doubling Down On His Border Failures
20. Biden is restricting media access at the border to hide the true extent of the crisis and dodge accountability. When asked why his administration is denying press access, Biden conceded he is purposefully waiting to provide transparency at border facilities.
21. Instead of reversing course, Biden has doubled down on his failing open borders policies.
22. Biden has even removed civil penalties for illegal immigrants for a “failure-to-depart.”
Biden’s Anti-Energy Agenda Is Destroying Jobs
23. Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, which could destroy anywhere between 400,000 and 2.7 million jobs.
24. On day one, Biden abandoned Keystone XL pipeline workers, forcing thousands into unemployment with the stroke of a pen. American workers and families effected by his job-killing decision are still struggling to get by.
25. We are still waiting for Biden to announce a plan for these workers. Psaki said she had “nothing more” when asked about how Biden plans to replace oil and gas jobs killed by his energy policies.
26. When asked about the workers forced out of work by Biden’s policies, administration officials have dismissed concerns, saying they need “different [jobs],” “different education,” and that there are “jobs that might be sacrificed.”
27. While Biden implements policies to kill American jobs, he is kowtowing to China and Russia so they cooperate with his environmental agenda.
28. Biden is blocking new oil and gas drilling on federal lands, which if kept in place threatens millions of jobs.
29. Biden nominated an Interior Secretary that believes oil and gas extraction on public lands should be permanently banned.
Biden Is Proposing Massive Job-Destroying Tax Hikes
30. Biden is proposing a job-destroying $2 trillion tax hike to fund a Green New Deal-style “infrastructure” package, which studies say would threaten 159,000 American jobs and lower workers’ wages.
31. Biden’s proposed tax hike would raise the combined tax rate on U.S. businesses to the highest of any country in the G7 or OECD.
32. Biden’s first tax proposals are already breaking his campaign pledge, “If you make less than $400,000, you won’t see one single penny in additional federal tax.”
33. According to reports, Biden is planning to propose even greater tax hikes, raising taxes on capital gains to over 43%.
34. According to administration officials, he is showing an increased openness to a carbon tax.
Biden’s Proposal Is Not An Infrastructure Package
35. Only 7% of the spending of Biden’s proposed “infrastructure” package is for roads, bridges, highways, airports, waterways, and ports.
36. His administration has lied about the job creation that’s possible under his infrastructure plan. Even CNN and The Washington Post called Biden out on misleading the American people on job predictions.
37. In terms of Biden’s broader Green New Deal agenda, The Washington Post and Associated Press have noted that many of Biden’s proposals will destroy more jobs than they create, and create jobs that pay less than the jobs they destroy.
Biden Brings Back The Climate Hypocrites
38. Biden has brought the left-wing swamp to run his climate policy, including private plane hypocrite John Kerry.
39. The Biden administration is promoting a business that Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is actively invested in to the tune of millions of dollars. Granholm is set to profit off of the hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money Biden wants to spend as part of his infrastructure package.
On Schools, Biden Has Put Special Interests First
40. Biden repeatedly campaigned with American Federation of Teachers boss Randi Weingarten, who is leading the anti-science charge to keep America’s schools closed. Now that Biden is president, he has refused to call out the group.
41. Biden has caved to Democrat special interest groups at the expense of millions of children and families across America, even though the science shows that keeping schools closed has devastating effects on the mental health, social and economic situation, and academic achievement of children.
42. His stimulus bill put special interests before schools. The $1.9 trillion wish list only spends $6 billion, 0.3% of the bill, on K-12 schools this fiscal year with NO REQUIREMENT that they reopen.
43. He has slow-rolled a return to normalcy for Americans while doing almost nothing to stop the spread of COVID on the border.
44. Biden has conceded he has no plan to open high schools.
Biden Is Refusing To Speak Out Against The Growing Anti-Police Rhetoric In The Democrat Party.
45. The Biden administration has refused to condemn anti-police comments from Democrat members of Congress.
46. Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to condemn Maxine Waters’ inflammatory comments around the Chauvin trial that “we’ve got to get more confrontational.”
47. When Nancy Pelosi repeatedly defended Waters’ call for confrontation, Biden kept silent.
48. When every House Democrat voted to endorse Waters’ call for protestors “to get more confrontational,” Biden refused to speak out.
Biden’s Flip On Court Packing
49. Even though Biden criticized court packing for decades (check out these comments from 1983, 2005, and 2019), he has refused to speak out against House and Senate Democrats abandoning decades of bipartisan agreement by proposing court packing legislation.
50. He is even going a step further and actually establishing a court-packing commission.
Biden Says Goodbye To Bipartisanship & Hello To Extremism
51. Despite his campaign promises Biden is rejecting bipartisanship in favor of a hyper-partisan process to pass trillions in spending without Republican support.
52. Even the left-wing New York Times editorial board and members of his own party are calling out Biden for refusing to reach across the aisle.
53. He has resorted to governing through executive order, issuing far-left decrees at breathtaking speed.
54. In 2005, then-Senators Barack Obama and Biden both argued against getting rid of the filibuster. Now, Biden is showing an openness to eliminating it.
55. Biden declared that “no amendment to the Constitution is absolute” when discussing the 2nd amendment.
56. Biden is filling his administration with far-left activists, including important positions at the Justice Department, HHS, and ATF.
57. Despite promising unity and compromise on the campaign trail, the only unity Biden has shown is with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. He has spoken to Xi and Putin more times than Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy.
Biden’s Georgia Boycott
58. Biden has led a misinformation campaign about Georgia’s election integrity law. Biden got 4-pinnochios from The Washington Post for lying about the Georgia election law.
59. Despite being called out on his lies, Biden’s administration DOUBLED DOWN on and refused to disavow the incorrect claim.
60. Aided and abetted by misinformation peddlers like Stacey Abrams, Biden encouraged a boycott of Georgia.
61. Thanks to Biden’s lies about a law that actually expands voting opportunities, Georgia’s Cobb County is set to lose more than $100 million in tourism revenue.
62. What’s worse, Biden supported the boycott KNOWING it would hurt Georgia’s businesses and workers the most.
63. After Democrat Raphael Warnock admitted to spreading misinformation about the Georgia law, Biden is rallying with the senator in Atlanta tomorrow. Biden should apologize to Georgians instead.
Biden Backs The Democrats’ H.R. 1 Power Grab
64. Biden is backing the Democrats’ H.R. 1 power grab that, among other things, eviscerates commonsense voter ID provisions that 75% of American support.
65. By supporting H.R. 1, Biden is supporting a bill that would force states to allow paid party operatives to harvest ballots.
66. H.R. 1 would also threaten freedom of speech by turning the FEC into a partisan organization.
Biden Embraces Far-Left Spending Proposals & A Minimum Wage
67. Biden has dedicated trillions in wasteful spending for progressive pet projects.
68. He passed hundreds of billions of dollars for a blue state bailout. New York is now set to spend $2 billion for taxpayer-funded checks for illegal immigrants.
69. Biden is backing a $15 federal minimum wage mandate, which the CBO says could eliminate up to 3.7 million jobs.
70. He is pushing defense cuts in his budget.
Biden Is Caving To America’s Enemies
71. Biden has refused to criticize Xi Jinping, even saying he didn’t “mean it as a criticism” when he called Xi undemocratic.
72. When discussing China’s human rights abuses, Biden downplayed those concerns, saying “culturally there are different norms.”
73. Biden is failing to confront China, with Psaki even saying Biden is “not in a rush” to counter China.
74. And in yet another broken campaign promise, Biden has not confronted China over COVID-19’s origins
75. In a patten of appeasing America’s enemies, Biden is caving to Iran.
Biden Is Now A Pro-Abortion Extremist
76. Biden rescinded the Mexico City policy, forcing American taxpayers to fund abortions overseas.
77. Biden’s HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra has a history of attacking religious freedom, and during his hearing, he refused to rule out using taxpayer funds to pay for abortions and defended his past votes supporting the horrific practice of partial birth abortion.
Obamacare & Biden’s Government Takeover Of Health Care
78. Biden has repeated Barack Obama’s “lie of the year” on health care, and now as president he is bringing those lies back to Washington by working to reinstitute Obama’s terrible health care polices.
79. Biden has pushed to expand the worst policies of Obamacare in his first 100 days. He even wants to bring back the individual mandate, a tax that primarily hits poor Americans.
80. In his time as president, he has worked to expand Obamacare as he proposes a further government takeover of healthcare. A Navigant study found that Biden’s health plan could threaten more than 1,000 rural hospitals across 46 states.
81. As Biden’s border crisis booms, he refuses to walk back his pledge that his government-run health plan will be open to illegal immigrants.
On Operation Warp Speed, He’s The Lying, Plagiarist In Chief
82. Biden keeps lying about vaccines, and his administration still pushes the debunked claim that there was no vaccine plan when he came into office.
82. Thanks to the previous administration’s development and distribution plan under Operation Warp Speed, which Biden has falsely tried to claim credit for, millions of Americans have been vaccinated.
84. In September President Trump pledged: “Millions of doses will be available every month, and we expect to have enough vaccines for every American by April.” It tuns out, he was right, and we have Operation Warp Speed to thank.
85. Biden has failed to apologize for his statements spreading doubt about the vaccine which he made on the campaign trail last year.
Biden’s COVID $1.9 Trillion Bill Was A Far-Left Boondoggle
86. Biden’s $1.9 trillion boondoggle was not a “relief” bill.
87. Through Biden’s boondoggle, Democrats insisted on sending nearly $2 billion dollars in stimulus checks to prisoners, including violent felons like the Boston Marathon Bomber. Democrats blocked an amendment to restrict the stimulus payments when ramming through their partisan legislation.
88. In fact, hundreds of billions of the Democrats’ “relief” will not be spent for up to a decade from now.
Republican Coronavirus Policies Worked, Now Biden Wants To Rewrite History
89. Biden is trying to rewrite history on the coronavirus. After criticizing the Paycheck Protection Program and repeatedly visiting businesses that received PPP loans under President Trump, Biden baselessly claimed credit for their success.
90. After gaslighting the American people during the campaign, he proceeded to plagiarize the Republican’s coronavirus response at every turn, all while lying about the Trump administration’s robust COVID response.
91. Although he campaigned on a secret plan to “shut down the virus,” he now admits that he had no secret plan.
Biden Gives The Worst Governors In The Nation A Pass
92. Biden has failed to take responsibility for being one of Andrew Cuomo’s biggest cheerleaders. Biden even declared: “Your governor in New York’s done one hell of a job. I think he’s the gold standard.” What was Biden declaring the “gold standard?” Anti-science nursing home orders that led to thousands of deaths, rewriting reports to hide the higher death toll, and a cover-up in the face of a federal investigation so the data would not be “used against” the Cuomo administration.
93. During the campaign, Biden repeatedly applauded Whitmer’s terrible approach to the coronavirus, and now as we keep learning more about how awful her response truly was, he has refused to backtrack his endorsement of Whitmer. The policies Biden endorsed? Renewing devastating nursing home orders three times, refusing to release the data on nursing home deaths, and buying the silence of her former health director with a $150,000 taxpayer-funded confidentiality agreement.
94. Biden won’t insist hypocritical governors like Gavin Newsom open their economies. America can only recover economically if we allow our businesses to open, but instead of standing up to governors whose lockdowns are hurting Americans, Biden continues to take a backseat.
An Opaque Administration Where One Has To Wonder Who Is Setting Policy
95. The Biden administration is one of the least transparent in history, continually ignoring questions from the press.
96. Joe Biden holds the modern record for the number of days it took a president to hold his first press conference.
97. Biden has not kept his promise on ethics agreements, facing mounting pressure to disclose the ethics agreements of his appointees.
98. After establishing a cap on refugees not in line with the desires of his far-left base, Biden then backtracked and claimed that he didn’t say that the cap was “justified.”
99. Remember when Biden was silent as his press secretary claimed for days that his reopening goal was only 50% of the schools for one day a week? Was he just not paying attention all that time?
Joe Biden’s presidency has been one stumble after another. It has only been 100 days, and the American people are already paying a steep price for his failures
By • American Action News
Joe Biden’s pursuit of the presidency relied heavily on a carefully cultivated image that emphasized his moderate credentials. It won him the White House but, a new poll says, a majority of voters may be suffering from buyer’s remorse.
According to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey, 54 percent of U.S. voters surveyed said Mr. Biden was governing like “a puppet of the left” and not the “moderate ‘nice guy’” he portrayed himself as being during much of the campaign.
If that were not bad enough for a White House whose legislative agenda anticipates a prolonged progressive shift in U.S. politics, 49 percent of likely voters (including 24 percent of Democrats) participating in the same survey said they believed the left-wing of the Democratic Party “had too much influence” on Mr. Biden.
The condemnation of the president’s apparent lack of independence and leftward drift was shared widely among cross-sections of the electorate. Majorities of male and female voters, as well as voters in every age category, agreed he was operating as a “puppet.” Black voters, Rasmussen reports said, were “less likely” than voters in any other category to agree.
“Remarkably, many who say the left-wing has too much influence” on the president “also believe big business has too much influence” on him. The survey revealed 49 percent likely voters including 66 percent of GOP voters, 29 percent of Democrats, and 52 percent of unaffiliated voters were wary of the level of sway corporations had on the new president.
Voters who “strongly approve” of Mr. Biden’s presidential job performance were most likely to applaud the left’s influence on the administration’s agenda while those who strongly disapproved were almost unanimous in their opinion he was not governing as he’d promised.
During the initial days of his administration, Mr. Biden’s White House advanced several proposals that prioritized the interests of the green movement over those of the blue-collar union members who formed the core of the Democratic electorate at the time the president first entered the United States Senate. Among them was the decision to kill the Keystone XL pipeline – which even AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, a close ally of Mr. Biden’s seemed to admit was a job-killing move – and a ban on new fracking on federal lands which, experts say, will ravage the budgets of states dependent on energy exploration issues to pay for education and other critical programs.
The shift has observers who are admittedly not fans of Mr. Biden wondering if he is in charge at the White House of if Vice President Kamala Harris, who campaigned briefly for president on a much more progressive agenda, is calling many of the important shots. Either way, the voters are showing early on they’re not happy about having been sold a bill of goods, apparently expecting a vote against the Trump presidency was not specifically as a vote against Trump policies that drove energy prices to record lows, sparked a prolonged stock market rally, and prior to the onset of the pandemic-driven lockdowns, brought unemployment to its lowest level in decades.
All that may abate if Mr. Biden changes direction again after he’s been in office for one hundred days. The idea of front-loading a legislative agenda with the heaviest political and ideological lifts that allow an incoming president to maximize accomplishments during the “Honeymoon Phase” of his presidency is not new. It’s been done before precisely because it gives controversial legislation its best chance to get through Congress and gives those who support it including the president the most time possible to recover lost political capital before the next election.
Whether Mr. Biden can do that will depend on his ability to get progressives like Bernie Sanders and AOC as well as house Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to agree that, once reconciliation passes, he’s given them enough — for now.
Progressive efforts to staff the nascent administration backfire
By • The Washington Free Beacon
On Nov. 2, before the first votes in the presidential election had even been tallied, the foreign policy “experts” from the Blame America wing of the Democratic Party laid out their demands. Foreign Policy described their “wish list,” which included above all else their pick of jobs in the expected Biden administration.
They’d kept their mouths shut for six months and now they wanted their reward. Or, as Foreign Policy put it, they were preparing to “take off the gloves, setting the stage for a public brawl for the party’s soul over policy and political appointments to the most senior positions.”
But Biden’s victory was less sweeping than expected, and as early as Nov. 6, Foreign Policy was reporting that progressives were panicking that the election results would “ease pressure on Biden to offer progressives key positions in the new administration.”
Still, the nomenklatura have pressed on, presenting the Biden transition team with a list of 100 names they must consider for senior jobs in the new administration.
The list’s existence was first reported by Politico, but the Washington Free Beacon obtained the document and published it in full. It includes a rogue’s gallery of fringe figures—anti-Semites, operatives with deep ties to unsavory regimes, and the merely unserious and unqualified.
And it quickly became clear that the organizers did not want the list to see the light of day. The Free Beacon’s publication of the dossier elicited recriminations and finger pointing. List organizers accused the mainstream reporters with whom they’d shared the list—presumably, an accurate one—of leaking the document to their enemies (us). At the same time, they told us we’d obtained an inaccurate copy, representative only of “research materials.” False, unless they were bamboozling us all.
The contretemps is revealing of how quickly the Democratic Party’s progressive wing went from demanding to begging, and of the disorganization and unseriousness of its efforts. Turns out, one mainstream reporter said, that list organizers hadn’t even consulted with several of those named on the list before including their names and résumés without their permission.
Vanquished in the primaries and now at risk of exclusion from the new administration, they are in disarray. A compelling story, if anybody cared to cover it.
The 2020 election was a referendum on the progressive elite, and they were soundly defeated
By • The Washington Free Beacon
In a week of surprises, California’s rejection of a ballot measure that would have allowed the state to resume its affirmative action program was among the most significant.
The measure, known as Proposition 16, wasn’t defeated by shy Trump voters. Polling showed Hispanic and other minority voters evenly split on the measure, and on Tuesday it was defeated in California’s most Latino counties.
California’s result is just one piece of the mounting evidence that voters on Tuesday threw a wrench in the progressive plan to leverage a “coalition of the ascendant” and an “emerging Democratic majority” to turn the country into a woke utopia.
The 2020 election was in large part a referendum on Democrats’ race baiting and pandering, starting with the party’s own elevation of Biden to the top of the ticket. Democrats’ rejection of Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Kamala Harris was a leading indicator that the media missed.
Millions of voters of all races made clear that they instead prefer the old ideals: equality of opportunity, economic freedom, and a society that judges its citizens not by the color of our skin, but the content of our character.
Beyond that, the president whom Democrats have lambasted for four years as a racist and a xenophobe turned out more minority voters than any Republican candidate in decades. It’s not just that right-wing Cubans handed Trump a surprise victory in south Florida; he clinched some of the nation’s most Latino counties, improved his margins with black men and women, and even earned commanding majorities in some Native American counties. And that exit poll data does not account for the shy Trump voters, an effect we presume may well be exaggerated among black and Hispanic voters.
Senate races yielded more bad news for the progressive left. Even if Joe Biden wins the White House, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), who easily overcame an $80 million challenge, will serve as a check on the ascendance of socialists such as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) to the Biden cabinet. Voters may have wanted Biden, but there’s a whole wing of his party they’d prefer to do without.
Some House Democrats can see the writing on the wall. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D., Va.) reportedly told her caucus that the progressive push to defund the police and embrace “socialism” almost cost them the majority. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.) advised Democrats to drop the woke speak, starting with the bizarre “Latinx.”ADVERTISING
Tuesday’s results should shatter the Democratic presumption that their party is destined to command the overwhelming and eternal support of minority voters—but it won’t. The politics fueled by racial grievance and personified by the “squad” of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib is a cancer on the Democratic Party that it indulges at its own peril.
The left's new extremism condones assaulting conservatives in public. Antifa's attack on a journalist is yet another example that our norms have changed.
By • the Federalist
Over the weekend, the Washington Post published an opinion article written by Stephanie Wilkinson, the owner of Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia. Wilkinson famously kicked out White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her family last June over what Wilkinson felt was a moral obligation to stand up to the Trump administration. The restaurant owner not only ejected Sanders, but followed her into another restaurant to continue the harassment.
Wilkinson doubled down on her actions in her Washington Post article, claiming that all restaurants and businesses have a moral obligation to prevent dissenters from participating in public life because, as she said, “this isn’t about politics. It’s about values, and accountability to values, in business.”
Her position, like many others, is that President Trump is akin to a murderous dictator, that he is an unabashed anti-LGBT racist, despite no evidence to support this. She has subscribed to the rules and followed them to the letter, so naturally, anyone who shares any values with the conservative president is the enemy. In closing, she suggests:
When the day comes that the world feels returned to its normal axis, I expect we’ll see fewer highly charged encounters making headlines. In the meantime, the new rules apply. If you’re directly complicit in spreading hate or perpetuating suffering, maybe you should consider dining at home.
The New York Times ran a companion article this weekend in their opinion section that suggested civilians should expose those attempting to address the humanitarian crisis at the border. Author Katie Cronin-Furman, an “assistant professor for human rights,” didn’t mean the human smugglers and the scores of people exploiting children to gain access to the United States, but the government employees of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). She cited the cash-starved agencies as being solely responsible for the deplorable conditions at the detention facilities.
The author further suggests that the best way to combat the crisis at the border, which was repeatedly denied by the left until very recently, was to obtain the names and identities of government agents and shame them publicly in their home towns and churches. She said, “Immigration lawyers have agent names; journalists reporting at the border have names, photos and even videos. These agents’ actions should be publicized, particularly in their home communities.”
Cronin-Furman further suggested that attorneys should think twice about representing these government agents: “the American Bar Association should signal that anyone who defends the border patrol’s mistreatment of children will not be considered a member in good standing of the legal profession.” Mind you, even serial killers, rapists, terrorists, and pedophiles have the right to legal representation in this country. But apparently U.S. government employees attempting to deal with a crisis our Congress refuses to address do not.
These are the new rules of civility. Last week, a server at The Aviary, an upscale cocktail lounge in Chicago, spit in the face of the president’s son, Eric. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot condemned this, as did the owners of The Aviary, but public support for the server was astronomic. A fundraising page for the employee (later determined to be fake) raised more than $5,000 in less than two days.
Carlos Maza, an employee of liberal outlet Vox, made headlines in June for causing YouTube to yank ad revenue from conservative Steven Crowder. He claimed Crowder was guilty of “hate speech” and harassment. Crowder frequently poked fun at Maza and his extremely leftist views on his show, “Louder with Crowder.” Just a month earlier, however, Maza suggested attacking all conservatives by hurling drinks at them. In a tweet, he said, “Milkshake them all. Humiliate them at every turn. Make them dread public organizing.”
Vice published an article in May titled, “How to Make the Perfect Milkshake for Throwing at Fascists,” which encouraged readers to hurl the beverages at any conservative they recognize in public. Food blog Eater doubled down on Vice’s suggestion with a tongue-in-cheek piece about the best throwing food for “fighting fascism.”
The Boston Globe published an article in April that suggested food service workers should tamper with the food of conservatives, including of Bill Kristol, who has never supported the Trump administration in any way. The Boston Globe later removed their article after severe backlash. Throwing any object at a person is considered assault.
In the past year, nearly a dozen members of the Trump administration and conservative lawmakers have been chased out of restaurants and pelted with milkshakes, not for causing civil disruption, but simply for being in public. The new rules being touted so strongly by the media aren’t limited to lawmakers and cabinet members any longer, however. Milkshakes, harassment, and public shaming are now excused penalties for anyone who doesn’t fully subscribe to their ideology.
In that vein, any journalist critical of policies now considered by the left to be nothing short of moral imperatives would also be unwelcome in the public square and therefore a complicit “fascist.” After the shocking moment in Thursday night’s Democratic debate when all ten candidates raised their hands in favor of unlimited taxpayer-provided health care for illegal immigrants, noted Trump critic Andrew Sullivan suggested their extreme position could cost them the election. He was quickly labeled on social media as a Trump apologist and racist.
Then there was the attack on journalist Andy Ngo this weekend in Portland, Oregon, by Rose City Antifa. While the extreme left continues to tout their new rules of civility as being merely “peaceful protests,” Ngo was targeted and brutally attacked by black-mask-wearing members of an extremist organization. As Antifa pelted Ngo with fists, milkshakes, and other objects, stealing his camera and phone as he lay bleeding on the ground, police stood idly by under directives of a very liberal mayor in a very liberal city. Just three arrests were made. Ngo was hospitalized with a brain bleed.
Ngo, who is openly gay, is an editor for Quillette, a magazine that stays in the center politically but often publishes articles that fall outside of the “correct way” of thinking as laid out by extreme progressives. The new rules seem to ban any contradicting thought from public life, and if peaceful protesting doesn’t make people fall in line, then more forceful, violent methods now have received the green light.
The political line in the sand between the left and right has evolved into a fracture so deep and wide that the idea of crossing it in either direction has become almost unthinkable. Progressive liberals have set a far-left course that has been followed by most congressional Democrats, even those who once considered themselves to be moderate. They’ve laid out their rules for the “correct” way to think, to speak, and to vote.
“Correct” for the new left includes eliminating border enforcement, giving government benefits to illegal immigrants, socializing education from pre-K all the way through college, striking private health insurance in favor of Medicare, and using taxpayer revenue to pay for abortions without restriction. The stunning ascension of such extreme policy proposals from high-profile Democrats has further cast conservatives, moderates, and many in their own party as the villains in a battle between good and evil.
What has been made abundantly clear in recent days is that the new left has no intention of negotiating their terms. In addition to laying out the way they feel every man, woman, and child should think, the party of “decency” and “tolerance” has become totally intolerant of dissenting thought. Those who challenge their ideas are often branded as racists, misogynists, and even Nazis because to the new left, their extremism isn’t a political ideology, it’s the new national code for morals and values.
By David Harsanyi • The Federalist
It’s apparently never too early for presidential politics. Right now, former vice president Joe Biden tops, or nearly tops, every poll assessing the popularity of the potential 2020 Democratic presidential field. Biden, reportedly still mulling over whether 76 is too old to run for president, has claimed he’s the “most qualified person” for the position. Considering the players in the Democratic field, it’s difficult to argue otherwise.
Then again, the idea that experience is a determining factor for voters is a dubious one. The past two president have had little policy experience. Most of the Democratic field––at least the senators––has never voted for any consequential legislation. The most significant position, it seems, is how melodramatic a candidate can get about the imagined dystopia of the Donald Trump era. And when it comes to hyperbole, Biden is a heavyweight. Continue reading
There will be no winners in this showdown between Left-wing fantasists and the European project’s true believers.
by Janet Daley • The Telegraph (London) 
Which of these do you find more repugnant: an autocratic European Union which is no longer bothering to conceal its intention to displace an elected government, or a shambolic clique of Left-wing fantasists who are propelling a country – and its hapless population – into economic ruin and political chaos?
It’s a tough call, isn’t it? Whatever happens in the Greek referendum on Sunday, it will not be the end of this pantomime. In fact, it is intended not to be the end, in spite of the Greek prime minister’s bizarre assertion last week that he could guarantee a deal would be made with the country’s creditors within 48 hours of a “no” vote – when, in fact, a “no” vote would effectively guarantee the impossibility of making such a deal since the answer “no” is a rejection of meaningful concessions to the creditors. Continue reading
by Michael Barone 
Many people on the political left don’t much like the First Amendment. That seems odd to someone of my generation. In past times people who suppressed what the Supreme Court ultimately ruled speech—student armbands, nude dancing, flag burning—were usually conservatives. But now it seems that it’s mostly liberals who want to shut down speech that offends them, and it’s usually political speech which many people think was the main concern of the Founders rather than the kinds of speech referenced above.
Anyway, here are some examples of liberals trying to shut down speech. Continue reading
by George Landrith 
For years, media bias has been hotly debated. Let me settle this here and now. The mainstream media is not biased. Bias implies some level of subtly in the prejudice. There is nothing subtle about the media’s blatant partiality which actually reaches the level of dishonest propaganda.
There is an unmistakeable trend in play – some evil and/or demented person kills and injures a large number of innocent people and the extreme Left and the “mainstream” media (but I repeat myself) blame conservatives for the evil-doer’s actions. This is an almost reflexive reaction for the media and the Left. Continue reading